Saturday, November 29, 2014

C.S. Lewis: A Heart Afire


I was introduced to the mind of C(live) S(taples) Lewis through a gift. My best friend gave me a copy of The Four Loves as medication for some perplexing developments in a relationship with Marti, the girl of my dreams at the time. Eventually, Marti moved on with a professor of English at UNC Chapel Hill. I was left with a life-long literary relationship with Lewis and can only trust that Marti found equal satisfaction. C.S. Lewis, one of the last century's leading scholars, novelists, and Christian apologists, was born on this day in 1898. Most readers likely know his name, but many may not be familiar with the depth and breadth of his literary accomplishments.  


C.S. Lewis                                                        National Portrait Gallery, London

Immersed the the world of the university scholar, Lewis appreciated his privacy, but he was far from reclusive. For that reason, we have few interviews and recordings of the man.  One tape that survived is a fifteen-minute talk he gave over BBC Radio during a three part series of presentations between 1942 and 1944.  The recording reveals the great warmth, friendliness, and integrity of the man. 








The talks soon appeared as three separate books shortly after World War II. In 1952, the series was edited into a single book, Mere Christianity, in 1952. It's now considered a masterpiece in Christian apologetics.

If you cannot enjoy a Lewis book you simply haven't read enough of his work. And there is enough to accommodate readers as his Wikipedia bibliography has almost eighty entries of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Choose...and enjoy.


Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

                                                                                                    C.S. Lewis, 1960



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